UOW academic receives medal for work in electronic polymers

Jul 14, 2004

The Director of the ARC Centre for Nanostructured Electromaterials and the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, Professor Gordon Wallace, received the Royal Australian Chemical Institute's (RACI) highest honour for research in electrochemistry at a conference held in the Gold Coast this week.

Professor Wallace proudly accepted the RACI's Stokes Medal for outstanding electrochemical research carried out in Australia.

Professor Alan MacDiarmid, Chair of the Centre's International Advisory Board, received the RACI's Breyer Medal for outstanding research in electrochemistry carried out overseas.

The awards were for research in the field of electronic polymers - materials discovered by Professor MacDiarmid and co-workers in 1977, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000.

Both researchers acknowledged the critical contribution of students and collaborators in Australia and overseas, with Professor Wallace paying special tribute to PhD students, both past and present.

"PhD students provide the energy, enthusiasm and open mindedness needed to carry out cutting edge research over a sustained period of time. They make up the engine room of most research organisations," he said.

Professor Wallace has supervised 40 PhD students to completion and many of these students now have significant research careers in their own right.

The RACI medals are awarded every four years.

-RP